Fear
by She's a Star
Summary: Snape reflects on memories of the past and fears of what the future may hold after the Dark Lord's rising.


Fear  
  
by She's a Star  
  
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to the brilliant J.K. Rowling :)  
  
A/N: I've been trying to write a Snape fic for a while now...I think he's a fascinating character, and I'd love to get inside his mind, but I don't know if I'm...dark enough to pull it off. *sigh* If only I had an ounce of Airelle Vilka's brilliance...  
  
Anyway, please review and tell me what you thought. Thanks a mil :)  
  
  
~ * ~  
  
The students are scared of me.  
Truly terrified.  
It can be amusing at times, yes, but overall, it's pathetic.  
If I am all that they have to fear, then they've lived a tragically sheltered existence. Now that the Dark Lord is back, it will be a slap in the face, a slap that will cause them to realize that life isn't all sunshine and flowers, hearts and candy. Only this will leave a mark for so much longer than the mere work of a hand could ever do.  
Evil is a great thing. Not great in a positive sense, but great in the sense of power. Everyone always says that good will win in the end, but if this was so, there would be no end.  
I know evil. Much better, I'm sure, than I'll ever even begin to know good. And because I know it, I understand it. I understand that when the Dark Lord robs people of their lives and tortures innocent families, he gets a rush. A sense of power that he craves, perhaps even needs to live off of.  
The other Death Eaters would often speak of it, back when I was with them. I never felt that...I only felt guilt and pain and a sense of overwhelming compunction each time I harmed someone.  
I killed one person.  
One person and my life shattered. My robes, my hands, my mind were always drenched subconsciously with blood, even though my victim hadn't shed a drop. Their pleading cries never stopped echoing throughout my mind, and that look of terror...that look of total and absolute terror haunts me to this very day. Every time I close my eyes, it returns.  
I don't bother to attempt to make the image disappear, or blame it on the spirit of the person I killed.  
It was my fault, my error, my foolish decision.   
I deserve to see that face.  
It was a woman...no, a girl. She couldn't have been older than sixteen.   
To think I took the life of a child.  
But I was young and reckless and stupid. One shout and I didn't think twice.  
"Kill her!"  
So I did.  
And now I have to suffer the consequences. I'm not going to try to blame it on anyone else. There's no point. I'm not going to be a dishonest coward and say that it was the girl's fault because she was paralyzed with fear and didn't even attempt to escape, or that random Death Eater's fault because they'd uttered the shout.  
Avada Kedavra didn't escape either of their lips.  
Both are innocent.  
The guilt is mine alone.  
It will never leave me, I've known and accepted the fact over time. And while one death is still one too many, by not moving she prevented others. I went to Dumbledore two days later, telling him I'd come back to the good side.  
The right side.  
There is fear now.  
I can sense it in the air, so thick and heavy that you can feel it pushing down on you, demanding that you surrender to it.  
Surrendering to fear is a dangerous thing.  
Accepting it is another. I learned long ago to accept my fears...it's much to easy to go mad if you keep telling yourself that you are invincible, that nothing affects you.   
Just look at what happened to the Potters.  
James was the model Gryffindor, claiming that nothing frightened him and he could face the world. It took two words and a flash of green light to prove him wrong.   
But Lily...Lily was different. Selfless. She didn't even fear death, or if she did, she hid it well. Just gave herself up for her son.  
And I know that, if he had to, Potter would do the same thing for someone. That disrespectful fool Weasley or know-it-all Granger.  
There is a good chance that he will.  
All I can hope is that when he does, it will be at the right time and not some frivolous act to prove courage, to fulfill that Gryffindor spirit.   
The fate of the wizarding world lies in the boy's hands.  
And right now, it is that which I fear most. 


End file.
